The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome

The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome

1995 | PDF | 144 pages | 17 MB

Matching clear graphics with informative text, Christopher Scarre's atlas gives a fine overview of Roman history from the emergence of the first city-state in the eighth century B.C. to the rise of Christian theocracy a millennium later. 

The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome is especially helpful in showing the growth of the Roman empire through successive centuries of military campaigning from Scotland to Arabia and in delineating the networks of trade, transit, and communication that bound the far-flung outposts to the imperial capital. Scarre notes that many of those networks still survive in one form or another.

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Graphic History of Architecture

Graphic History of Architecture

1999 | 192 pages | PDF | 63 MB

What is a hammer-beam roof? Where does a voissoir fit in an arch? What churches did Nicholas Hawksmoor design? Now architecture students and others interested in the history of the built environment can consult a single reference book to find the answers to these and to hundreds of other questions, quickly and in the form most easily comprehended: clear and logical drawings. There are 2000 drawings in this book covering the history of Western architecture from Egypt through Wright, Saarinen, and Fuller.

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State, Space, World: Selected Essays

State, Space, World: Selected Essays

PDF | 320 pages | 4.41 MB

One of the most influential Marxist theorists of the twentieth century, Henri Lefebvre pioneered the study of the modern state in an age of accelerating global economic integration and fragmentation. 

Shortly after the 1974 publication of his landmark book The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre embarked on one of the most ambitious projects of his career: a consideration of the history and geographies of the modern state through a monumental study that linked several disciplines, including political science, sociology, geography, and history.

State, Space, World collects a series of Lefebvre’s key writings on the state from this period. 

Making available in English for the first time the as-yet-unexplored political aspect of Lefebvre’s work, it contains essays on philosophy, political theory, state formation, spatial planning, and globalization, as well as provocative reflections on the possibilities and limits of grassroots democracy under advanced capitalism.

State, Space, World is an essential complement to The Production of Space, The Urban Revolution, and The Critique of Everyday Life. Lefebvre’s original and prescient analyses that emerge in this volume are urgently relevant to contemporary debates on globalization and neoliberal capitalism.
 

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Space in America: Theory History Culture

Space in America: Theory History Culture

  2005 | 643 pages | PDF | 1,7 MB

Space in America Theory History Culture America's sense of space has always been tied to what Hayden White called the "narrativization" of real events. If the awe-inspiring manifestations of nature in America (Niagara Falls, Virginia's Natural Bridge, the Grand Canyon, etc.) were often used as a foil for projecting utopian visions and idealizations of the nation's exceptional place among the nations of the world, the rapid technological progress and its concomitant appropriation of natural spaces served equally well, as David Nye argues, to promote the dominant cultural idiom of exploration and conquest. 

From the beginning, American attitudes towards space were thus utterly contradictory if not paradoxical; a paradox that scholars tried to capture in such hybrid concepts as the "middle landscape" (Leo Marx), an "engineered New Earth" (Cecelia Tichi), or the "technological sublime" (David Nye).

Not only was America's concept of space paradoxical, it has always also been a contested terrain, a site of continuous social and cultural conflict. Many foundational issues in American history (the dislocation of Native and African Americans, the geo-political implications of nation-building, immigration and transmigration, the increasing division and "clustering" of contemporary American society, etc.) involve differing ideals and notions of space. 

Quite literally, space and its various ideological appropriations formed the arena where America's search for identity (national, political, cultural) has been staged. If American democracy, as Frederick Jackson Turner claimed, "is born of free land," then its history may well be defined as the history of the fierce struggles to gain and maintain power over both the geographical, social and political spaces of America and its concomitant narratives. 

The number and range of topics, interests, and critical approaches of the essays gathered here open up exciting new avenues of inquiry into the tangled, contentious relations of space in America. 

Topics include: Theories of Space ¯ Landscape / Nature ¯ Technoscape / Architecture / Urban Utopia ¯ Literature ¯ Performance / Film / Visual Arts

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The Architecture of Modern Italy

Volume I : The Challenge of Tradition 1750-1900

 English

This groundbreaking and authoritative two-volume survey is the first truly comprehensive history of modern Italian architecture and urbanism to appear in any language. Told in lively prose, it recounts more than 250 years of experimentation, creativity, and turmoil that have shaped the landscape of contemporary Italy.

Volume I: The Challenge of Tradition, 17501900, explores the dynamic balancing of forces demanded by a reverence for Italy's unparalleled architectural patrimony and a desire for new means of expression and technological innovation. From the neoclassical fantasies of Giovanni Battista Piranesi to the spectacular steeland-glass gallerias of Milan and Naples, it reveals an underappreciated history of richness and complexity.

The Architecture of Modern Italy is exhaustively illustrated with rare period images, new photography, maps, drawings, and plans. With Colin Rowe's Italian Architecture of the 16th Century, it provides a nearly complete overview of the history of Italian architecture.

Volume II : Visions of Utopia, 1900-Present

 English

This groundbreaking and authoritative two-volume survey is the first truly comprehensive history of modern Italian architecture and urbanism to appear in any language. Told in lively prose, it recounts more than 250 years of experimentation, creativity, and turmoil that have shaped the landscape of contemporary Italy.

Volume II: Visions of Utopia, 1900-Present, tracks the development of Italys architectural avant-garde through the upheavals of the twentieth century. Beginning with the development of Italian art nouveau--"stile liberty"--and moving through futurism, fascism, rationalism, and on to the creative experimentation of the present day, it explores the work of such pivotal figures as Raimondo dAronco, Antonio SantElia, Adalberto Libera, Giuseppe Terragni, Pier Luigi Nervi, Gio Ponti, Carlo Scarpa, Aldo Rossi, and Renzo Piano. 

The Architecture of Modern Italy is exhaustively illustrated with rare period images, new photography, maps, drawings, and plans. With Colin Rowe's Italian Architecture of the 16th Century, it provides a nearly complete overview of the history of Italian architecture.

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Volume II  

Architecture in the United States

Architecture in the United States

English / HTML

American architecture is astonishingly varied. From Native American sites in New Mexico and Arizona, and the ancient earthworks of the Mississippi Valley, to the most fashionable contemporary buildings of Chicago and New York, the United States boasts three thousand years of architectural history. It is characterized by the diversity of its builders and consumers who include Native American men and women, African, Asian, and European immigrants, as well as renowned professional architects and urban planners.

Leading historian Dell Upton's revolutionizing interpretation examines American architecture in relation to five themes: community, nature, technology, money, and art. In giving particular attention to indigenous, folk, ethnic, and popular architectures like Chaco Canyon, the Brooklyn Bridge, and Native American houses, as well as to the great monuments of traditional histories such as Jefferson's Monticello and Wright's Fallingwater, Architecture in the United States reveals the dazzling richness of America's human landscape.

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Domus - projects

Domus - projects

Reproducing the pages as they originally appeared, each volume is packed with articles that bring to light the incredible history of modern design and architecture. A truly comprehensive lexicon of styles and movements, the volumes are accompanied by specially commissioned introductory texts that not only outline the history of the magazine but also describe what was happening in design and architecture during each era covered.

These texts have been written by many of the magazine’s renowned past editors: Mario Bellini, François Burkhardt, Cesare Maria Casati, Stefano Casciani, Germano Celant, Manolo De Giorgi, Fulvio Irace, Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani, Alessandro Mendini, Lisa Licitra Ponti, Ettore Sottsass Jr., Luigi Spinelli, and Deyan Sudjic.

The volumes have also been thoroughly indexed, allowing the reader easy access to key articles —many of which have been translated into English for the first time.
 

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Domus - design

Domus - design

Reproducing the pages as they originally appeared, each volume is packed with articles that bring to light the incredible history of modern design and architecture. A truly comprehensive lexicon of styles and movements, the volumes are accompanied by specially commissioned introductory texts that not only outline the history of the magazine but also describe what was happening in design and architecture during each era covered.

These texts have been written by many of the magazine’s renowned past editors: Mario Bellini, François Burkhardt, Cesare Maria Casati, Stefano Casciani, Germano Celant, Manolo De Giorgi, Fulvio Irace, Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani, Alessandro Mendini, Lisa Licitra Ponti, Ettore Sottsass Jr., Luigi Spinelli, and Deyan Sudjic.

The volumes have also been thoroughly indexed, allowing the reader easy access to key articles —many of which have been translated into English for the first time.
 

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Domus - architecture

Domus - architecture

Reproducing the pages as they originally appeared, each volume is packed with articles that bring to light the incredible history of modern design and architecture. A truly comprehensive lexicon of styles and movements, the volumes are accompanied by specially commissioned introductory texts that not only outline the history of the magazine but also describe what was happening in design and architecture during each era covered.

These texts have been written by many of the magazine’s renowned past editors: Mario Bellini, François Burkhardt, Cesare Maria Casati, Stefano Casciani, Germano Celant, Manolo De Giorgi, Fulvio Irace, Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani, Alessandro Mendini, Lisa Licitra Ponti, Ettore Sottsass Jr., Luigi Spinelli, and Deyan Sudjic.

The volumes have also been thoroughly indexed, allowing the reader easy access to key articles —many of which have been translated into English for the first time.
 

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The Dome : A Study in the History of Ideas

The Dome : A Study in the History of Ideas

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Origins, Imitation, Conventions

Origins, Imitation, Conventions :

Representation in the Visual Arts.

342 pages | PDF | 17,1 MB

This collection contains studies written by art historian James Ackerman over the past decade.

The "origins" studied here include the earliest art history and criticism; the beginnings of architectural drawing in the Middle Ages and Renaissance; Leonardo Da Vinci's sketches for churches, the first in the Renaissance to propose supporting domes on sculpted walls and piers; and the first architectural photographs.

 "Imitation" refers to artistic achievements that in part depended on the imitation of forms established in practices outside the fine arts, such as ancient Roman rhetoric and print media.

 "Conventions," like language, facilitate communication between the artist and viewer, but are both more universal (understood across cultures) and more fixed (resisting variation that might diminish their clarity). The three categories are closely linked throughout the book, as most acts of representation partake to some degree of all three.

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Egyptian Towns and Cities

Egyptian Towns and Cities

(Shire Egyptology)

 PDF | 72 pages | 3,2 Mb

This book surveys the main kinds of urban settlement and town planning that existed in ancient Egypt before the town planning. The evolution and growth of Predynastic villages is traced as an essential prelude to the much greater achievements of the Pharaohs in establishing first towns and then cities. The later growths are shown to be of two basic types, royal foundations and those which underwent a natural expansion throughout history. From this they are classified as constituting various standard types based on function: provincial centres, planned workmen's villages, military and frontier towns, towns inhabited by funerary priests and, ultimately, royal residences and the capitals. The range of size and material is tremendous, covering small closely knit communities of a few hundred people, towns with several thousand inhabitants and vast cities, as large as any in the ancient world, with tens of thousands of citizens.
 

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Details of Victorian Architecture

Details of Victorian Architecture
16.6 Mo / PDF

Details of Victorian Architecture for the historical perspective... Incredibly beautiful piece of work, this book about Victorian architecture. 

Apparently about some French exhibition around 1880. It's one of my absolute fav books... 

There's no front- nor back cover and no author. It seem to be a

reprint from an old book. Could be a Dover Publications product. 

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Courtyard Housing : Past, Present, Future

Courtyard Housing : Past, Present, Future.

 248 pages | PDF | 10 Mb

Courtyard housing is one of the oldest forms of domestic development spanning at least 2000 years and occurring in distinctive form in many regions of the world. Traditionally associated with the Middle East where climate and culture have given shape to a particular type of courtyard housing, other examples exist in Latin America, China and in Europe where the model has been reinterpreted. This book demonstrates, through discussions on sustainability and regional identity, and via a series of case studies, that she courtyard housing form has a future as well as a past

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Architectural Theory - An Anthology from Vitruvius to 1870

Architectural Theory - An Anthology from Vitruvius to 1870

Architectural Theory: Vitruvius to 1870 is a landmark anthology that surveys the development of the field of architecture from its earliest days to the year 1870. The first truly comprehensive anthology that brings together the classic essays in the field, the volume chronicles the major developments and trends in architecture from Vitruvius to Gottfried Semper. 

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Architectural Drawing

"Architectural Drawing"
 Thomas French  1922 | PDF | 168 pages | 46.4 mb

 This handbook will be interesting to people interested in the history of architecture.
For professionals it will be interesting and useful to draw attention to meticulously detail.

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American Architecture, Second Edition (World of Art)

"American Architecture, Second Edition (World of Art)"
 English | 2004 | PDF | 304 pages | 160 MB

This is a lucid and lively account of American architecture since the settlement of the New World in the 17th century. It includes details of recent developments - virtual architecture, the revival of historical styles, the thirst for striking originality and a new interest in the local.

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American Architecture Studies

American Architecture Studies

Montgomery Schuyler,

1892 | PDF | 211 pages | 14 MB

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

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Cities in the Pre-Modern Islamic World

Cities in the Pre-Modern Islamic World :

The Urban Impact of Religion, State and Society.

256 Pages  | PDF | 17 MB 

Cities in the Pre-Modern Islamic World will be of considerable interest to academics and students working on the archaeology, history and urbanism of the Middle East as well as those with more general interests in urban archaeology and urbanism.

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Beijing Record : A Physical and Political History of Planning Modern Beijing

Beijing Record: 

A Physical and Political History of Planning Modern Beijing

 536 pages | PDF | 20,1 MB

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